


The Wind Cries Stephanie

by Spludge237



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Drunkenness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29974515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spludge237/pseuds/Spludge237
Summary: Summers Preston visits the office of the Wild Wings Legal Team to speak with Fran Beans about loss.
Relationships: Summers Preston/Stephanie Winters
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Wind Cries Stephanie

**Author's Note:**

> "Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night. I miss you like hell."  
> Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), Letters

In the centre of Ciudad de México, next to the parking garage known as Wheeler’s Warehouse, you can find an unassuming park. The park is barely big enough to fit the large domed structure in the middle of it that appears to be not very tall; two, maybe three storeys. This is The Bucket, home to the ILB’s Mexico City Wild Wings. Were you to enter you would be immediately confronted with the depth of the stadium, sunken into the ground, sauce lake glistening under the lights. And should you, having dealt with the sense of vertigo, descend past the upper tier of stands known as The Nest, past the mysteriously runed (and salty smelling) doors of the Gastronomic Conjury Guild, past the concession stands staffed by an array of almost-identical harpies selling ballpark staples as hotdogs, popcorn, and wet pretzels, down past field level, beyond the player’s changerooms, and through the labyrinthian maze of corridors in the basement of the stadium, you may find your way to the door of the Wild Wings Legal team. Should you dare to venture through that portal, you would find an office, not unlike one typically found in a law firm, furnished with many desks. The Legal Team themselves hadn’t been in the office _en masse_ since successfully litigating on behalf of the New York Millennials, but the space was still used by the players in the big league. Though the main lights are off, you may see by the soft glow of the one lamp currently switched on the edge of a pile of papers awaiting filing, a computer keyboard gathering dust. A bottle of unlabelled alcohol, half consumed, and a glass, unsoiled. In the shadows of the desk, leaning against it, a golf bag with an array of hilts catching the fading light. From the chair behind the desk, the occasional glint of a meticulously maintained metal arm, with an intricately inlaid tattoo. The desk of Fran K. Beans: lawyer, bodyguard, bereaved. And should you have been there in this particular season, on this particular night, at this particular point of time, you would have heard a knock on the door.

Fran caught her breath. As far as whoever was knocking was concerned, she was not here, and she wanted no risk making no sound to dispel the illusion. Yet there it was again, another knock. Slightly more insistent. Urgent, even. And as the knocking subsided, the voice belonging to the unwelcome caller made itself known. Light, almost young sounding, yet sad. Hesitant, and almost stuttering. “Fran? It’s… It’s Summers. Raf said… Raf said I needed to talk with you.” Fran sighed. Rafael Davids was her flatmate, though as of late she had begun sleeping in the office. He was a source of boundless optimism and terrifying beverages which made Fran grateful that she had lost her sense of taste many years prior. She called back out at the door, “I’m ‘fraid Raf must’ve been mistaken, Miss Preston. I am not acceptin’ visitors at this time of the day.”. A silence fell upon the room, deep and horrid. Fran had almost put the entire disturbance to rest when she felt the slight shifting of the breeze on the other side of the desk, the papers rustling slightly in the wind. The air in front of the desk shimmered ever so slightly, then started condensing, taking shape first as a fog, then lightly tumbling slate-grey clouds, and eventually coalescing into the appearance of a woman, her boundaries only barely defined, all at once looking young and impossibly old. Summers Preston; lead-off hitter for the Wild Wings and literal manifestation of the wind. She looked almost sheepish and spoke softly. “I’m sorry. I let myself in. I just need to talk, and Raf said you’d be best person to talk to, and I’m not sure I believe him, and I was pretty sure you wanted to be left alone, but I really need to talk, and I think I’ve started to be annoying to Burke, and Cell just isn’t good for this sort of thing and…”. Summers trailed off, and after an uncomfortable second, resumed talking, though much less frantically. “I’m sorry. I’ve been a lot recently, and I’m not so hot at keeping myself together. I need to talk about Steph.”

The silence again overtook the room, as if it were a viscous liquid eager to flow into any gap offered to it, thick enough to drown in. Stephanie Winters, the long-time Wings pitcher and Summer’s romantic partner had recently become the second player since the Grand Siesta to find themselves encased in a peanut shell, the lingering damage of a defeated god.That was during the last season, and despite the best efforts of the team (and the rather desperate attempts to bribe some birds), Steph remained trapped. Fran shifted her bulk in the chair, feeling the tug of the briefcase handcuffed to her arm. She spoke, as much to chase the gloom away as to communicate with Summers. “I’m not sure what game Raf’s playin’, but I don’t think I’m gonna be good for talkin’.”, she drawled. Summers perked up ever so slightly. “Oh, I don’t need you to be good for talking, Fran. Just good for listening. Or pretending to. You don’t even have to answer my questions if you don’t feel the compulsion to. But I need to talk to someone and, well, you’ve always seemed wise. I’m just hoping it helps. Gods I hope it helps.” The silence rushed back, like the rolling tide.

Summers took a deep breath, which is to say she made her coalesced form make motions akin to doing so. She learnt long ago that people tend to be less panicky when talking to an embodiment of nature if she made her form mimic the natural patterns of those she interacted with. “Remembering” to breathe, or blink, or even fidget a little helped maintain the sense that she was a real person. Which Summers definitely was, as long as you were somewhat liberal in your definitions of both real and person. Unbeknownst to her, she had not blinked for a month.

“It’s the little things that drive me to despair, Fran” started Summers. “I miss helping to ice her knee after a game. Coming home to the smell of her cooking. Even though she knows I don’t eat, she always cooks something super aromatic, so I can smell it and share it with her that way. Playing cards with her; she’s super competitive about everything, and cards brings that out in her, and I love that. No idea where she picked up cribbage, but she’s an absolute beast. Catching a college flootball with her and just her pointing out the little things the players do that free up space and make the game work. She would have gone pro in that, I reckon, had she not caught that rough tackle that blew up the knee. Long silences as we watch some anime Steph found which I barely comprehend. Her hanging out in Burke’s apartment while Burke, Raf, and I go over the pitching fluid dynamics model. It’s not her jam, but she comes every time just to watch. Her asleep at night, peacefully, safe in our apartment, where the world cannot get her.”

Summers looked up at Fran. “I miss her, Fran. She’s right there and I miss her so bad. And right after Case, too. I mean, I feel stupid saying this to you but Case was the best of us in all the ways that don’t show up on the field, and to have both of them hurt, and I know I can say I miss Case, we all do, but I know it can’t be in the same way that you miss Case. I don’t know what that’s like, even with me missing Steph so bad right now, I’m not going to pretend I can ever know what it’s like for you to miss Case. I’m so sorry, Fran. I know you’ve heard all of us share our condolences and say our piece, and I know it doesn’t help none, but I’m so sorry, Fran.”

The silence filled the room once more, ghastly in its weight. Under the brim of her hat, barely perceptible, Fran’s eyes drifted to the desk next to hers. Everything had been left there as it was before the incineration of Case Sports. Case had been the face of the legal team, and a playoff hero for the Wings after they were called into service to replace the incinerated Miguel Wheeler. Before Case had been called up to the majors, Fran had served as their bodyguard and, in service of that, fencing instructor. But more than that, Case was her best friend, and they were Fran’s, and it wasn’t until after the Grand Siesta that they’d both been on the active roster together. It was easy to be around Case. It was easy to _be_ around Case. It wasn’t easy to be anywhere now.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause distress. I should go.” Summers said quietly, as she began to disperse. Fran looked up at the rapidly disappearing cloud formation. “No need to be apologizin’, Summers.” she said, picking up the bottle from the table and pouring some of it in the glass. “I don’t wish to go hastenin’ you upon your way. Stay, an’ have a drink”. Fran took a swig from the bottle, and placed it gently back on the table.

In nature, dangerous foods and liquids often come with pungent odour or an acrid taste in order to encourage foragers to seek sustenance elsewhere. The contents of the bottle on Fran’s desk came with both, for similar purposes. It was a gift from Silvia Rugrat, who described it as some of her “Premium Vintage” moonshine. It tasted foul (as Fran was reliably informed), and when questioned about it’s alcohol content, Silvia had yelled, “Proof? You ain’t got no proof, Fuzz” and run from the room. Summers didn’t drink, both in the sense that when she consumed liquid she didn’t pour it into the space her mouth would be and instead manipulated the air pressure around the surface of the liquid so that it evaporated into her, and also in the sense that she weighs practically nothing and doesn’t have any of the organs or enzymes required for the processing of alcohol, so exposure to such beverages caused her to almost immediately become quite inebriated.

Summers hovered her hand above the glass, and the liquid immediately disappeared.

Time passed, filled with more free, but less consequential conversation. The idle chatter of dancing around a void. Will we do well this year, can you believe we get to play with the Jessica Telephone, when did Cell learn to pitch like that, what is the deal with that new kid, anyway, Mechanics, huh; all topics to create enough noise to hold back the oppressive flood of silence that seeped from the corners of the legal teams office, a makeshift mausoleum to the life of Case Sports. “I lov’ ‘er”, Summers slurred, somewhat out of nowhere. “I lov’ ‘er, and when we break her out of that shell, I’m gonna ashk ‘er to marry me. Do you think I should? I think I should. You’d marry us, right? You can do that, you’re all legal and shit.” Despite herself, Fran felt a smile come to her face, slight as it may be. She’d spent more than her fair share of time outdoors, taking odd jobs in the middle of nowhere. She’d seen tornados, and hurricanes, and winds so strong the sand they whipped up could strip the paint off your truck, and yet here, in her office, the wind sat at her desk, small and demure, asking her to help her marry the girl of her dreams. She looked back over to Case’s desk. “We help people.”, Case would always say. “We help make things right for people, and we make sure that it’s done right. It’s why you get into the legal business.” She looked back down at the lightly dispersing patch of haze that represented the form of Summers Preston. How could she deny such a request?

“Miss Preston, it’d surely be an ‘onor. Though we oughta ask Miss Winters first, I reckon. Now,” Fran said, leaning back on her office chair and putting her feet up on her desk, “t’ ‘elp sober you up, how abouts you tell me ‘bout the season 7 championship run again. I do enjoy the way you tell that story.”


End file.
